Tesla Robotaxi to herald cutting edge manufacturing and AI convergence

After more than a decade of development on its revolutionary vision based autonomous driving software, Tesla will finally reveal its much anticipated Robotaxi on August 8, 2024.

The Robotaxi unveil will mark the convergence of Tesla’s latest Full Self Driving software and revolutionary 3rd generation vehicle manufacturing and usher in a new era of “Transport as a Service” (TAAS) with massive ramifications for the 70 million unit per annum global fossil car industry.

The announcement comes as the online Tesla community is abuzz with Full Self Driving (FSD) Beta software testers raving about the latest FSD version 12.3.3 update, with drivers reporting zero interventions during long drives in complex city traffic.

Former Tesla employee and YouTuber Farzad Mesbahi discussed the latest software update with James Douma, who’s one of tens of thousands of Tesla drivers in the US who’ve been testing the Beta software over the past two years.

“It’s a pretty remarkable departure in behaviour from V11,” said Douma. “It just works, you just don’t have interventions anymore.”

Douma, who’s been testing the latest update for the last two weeks, says he’s completed hours of city driving without manually overriding the software.

“The first thing I did was spend 3 hours driving all over the part of LA I live in, just random pin drops.” said Douma.

“And I didn’t have any interventions, it was rock solid.”

Another FSD tester and online Tesla blogger Omar Qazi, AKA @WholeMarsBlog, has also been testing FSD beta and has posted some stunning videos of version 12.3.3 in action around San Fransisco.

In the sped-up video below, Omar shows FSD completing lane changes, left and right hand turns, stopping for pedestrians, freeway exists and complex tight street driving all with zero human interventions.

Unlike other companies who’ve attempted to use LiDAR to solve autonomous driving, Tesla’s strategy from the beginning was to use a vision-based system of camera’s and artificial intelligence.

The theory being that humans naturally use vision to drive and navigate the world so why shouldn’t machines? Our road networks are all designed for vision with lines and signs which can be easy read by cameras and AI.

The software is so advanced that it can differentiate between sedans, utes, trucks and buses as well as motorbikes, scooters and bicycles. It can accurately identify pedestrians, traffic cones, wheelie bins and even dogs and place them in 3D space with astonishing precision.

Unlike the purely object based LiDAR system, the cameras can also identify and read traffic signage such as stop signs, traffic lights, speed limits, road works and even the arrows and symbols painted onto road surfaces. For an in-depth look of Tesla’s FSD software development see The Rise of the Machines: Tesla drives 50km autonomously through heavy LA traffic.

Musk tells employees to give all new customers FSD demonstrations

The recent rave reviews of FSD 12 aren’t the only clues suggesting Tesla has hit a new level of confidence with its autonomous driving software. Two weeks ago CEO Elon Musk sent an email to all staff saying they’re now required to give a full demonstration of FSD during vehicle handovers in North America.

“I know this will slow down the delivery process, but it is nonetheless a hard requirement,” Musk wrote in the email.

With thousands of deliveries every day, this means tens of thousands of people will be experiencing Tesla’s FSD every month which will generate a huge amount of conversation and confidence in the technology.

On top of this, Tesla has also recently offered a free trial of the latest FSD to all Tesla owners in North America which has increased the number of people with access from 500,000 to 2.2 million.

Technology moving faster than predictions made by world’s boldest tech futurist

If Tesla delivers on its August 8th commitment to showcase the self-driving Tesla Robotaxi, it will mark yet another correct prediction made by technology futurist Tony Seba.

Seba, who was interviewed on The Driven podcast last year, predicted in his 2014 book Clean Disruption that lithium-ion batteries would reach $50/kWh by 2027.

That was a forecast that many people said was crazy. However, it now seems Seba’s prediction was too conservative as Chinese battery maker (and Tesla supplier) CATL is likely to reach the milestone by mid-2024.

Despite being considered one of the boldest technology forecasters in the world, Seba has also underestimated the speed of development of battery longevity. In 2017 he predicted the first million-mile battery by 2030 however last week CATL announced a new EV battery with a 1.5 million km warranty, effectively beating Seba’s prediction by 5 years.

On autonomous vehicles Seba had some fascinating insights which he shared during his interview with The Driven.

“The day that we get level four, autonomous technology ready and approved by regulators, when that converges with on-demand, and electric transportation we will get what we call transportation as a service [TAAS].” Seba told The Driven.

“Some call it Robotaxi. Essentially, when that happens the cost per mile of transportation is going to drop by anywhere from 10 to 20 times.”

“So for most people who can barely pay their bills, it won’t make any sense to own a car,” said Seba.

“Do I spend $50,000 over the next five years to own a car? Or do I pay $100 a month for a subscription to transportation as a service?”

Seba says ICE vehicles get around 140,000 miles (225,000 km) over their lifetime. An EV with a 1.5 million km battery will get almost 7 times that amount. This means that EVs will last at least 6-7 times longer than ICE vehicles meaning the global car market will likely drop by over 75% because people won’t need to replace cars as often.

“People are going to be buying vehicles a lot less often. So with that, essentially cut the global vehicle market by a factor of four or five.”

TAAS combined with the million-mile battery will mean new vehicle sales will drop even further as people opt for super cheap electric robotaxi transport instead of spending tens of thousands on private vehicles.

“Either way, it’s pretty much over for internal combustion engine.” says Seba.

 Tesla Robotaxis could be “one of the biggest asset value increases in history”

In 2019 Musk said Robotaxis could earn their owners $US30,000 ($A46,000) per year. In the US a Model 3 starts at $US42,990 before the government’s $7,500 purchase credits meaning once legislators catch up, a new Model 3 used as a Robotaxi could almost pay itself off in the first year.

Combine that with a million-mile battery and all of a sudden you have an asset that could generate around $US300,000 for its owner over ten years. This obviously means as a revenue generating asset, a Tesla Model 3 is worth much more than its new sale price.

Musk has also said that every Tesla made since mid-2019 with the Hardware 3 autonomous diving chip is “hardware ready” for level 5 self-driving and that once FSD software was ready, only a software update would be required to turn these vehicles into a Robotaxis.

Since 2019 there’s been around 5 million Teslas sold with Hardware 3 or 4 chips. With level-5 self-driving software these vehicles would theoretically increase significantly in value as they turn into revenue-generating Robotaxis.

Even with a conservative estimate equal to one year’s earnings of $US30,000 this would see total asset value of the 5 million unit fleet increase by $US150 billion.

Obviously a lot needs to happen for this to be realised with the need for legislators to catch up to the technology and allow Robotaxis to operate in various jurisdictions.

This shouldn’t be a major problem however as billions of kilometres are driven in autonomous mode and statistics unequivocally prove that self-driving Robotaxis are at least ten times (soon perhaps 100 times) safer than human drivers.

It also raises the question that if a single Robotaxi can earn $US300,000 over 10 years, why would Tesla sell Model 3s and Ys for less than $50,000? Why would they sell them at all?

This has led some to speculate that once Tesla achieves level 5 FSD, it will likely stop selling vehicles to private owners and instead keep and operate them as part of a massive Robotaxi fleet.

A recent breakthrough in FSD software could be the major factor behind rumours that Tesla will dedicate more resources to its Robotaxi over the $25,000 model, both of which are to be built on the 3rd generation platform.

Many observers and Tesla owners who’ve been following the development and experiencing the rapid improvements in FSD software over recent years understand how advanced the technology already is.

If previous announcements are anything to go by, the August 8 Robotaxi reveal is set to be yet another spectacular display of engineering from the world’s leading EV and AI company.

The announcement could mark the beginning of a revolution in transport by ushering in transport as a service. If this happens it will no doubt have massive ramifications for the 70 million unit per year fossil car industry.